Evan's First Birthday!

Our nephew Evan, who lives in Austin, had his first birthday party this weekend. We all had so much fun celebrating with him, and he was a great birthday boy! Dean, Grant and I got there on Friday night and the boys got to play for a few minutes together before going to bed. Here's a cute picture of Evan.....isn't this face adorable??

The next morning, the boys played together a little bit. Well, really, they mainly just played near one another and looked at each other a few times!
When it was time for morning snack, they both sat on the floor and ate next to one another. Here's a picture of Evan protecting his territory.....I think Grant is trying to steal his Cheerios!
Grant is admiring his cousin....
Here he goes again.....what a little scavenger!!
Leah is so cute and creative....Cheerios, cheese, grapes and apple juice for the babies at the party!
Evan with Grandma. Isn't his little birthday outfit cute?
Evan and Grant playing again before the party started. Grant wants those toys!
My brother Rob, sister-in-law Leah, and Evan.
Evan's not quite sure what to make of his cake!! He ended up getting it all over his hands and kept trying to clap them together to get it off!
Family picture after the party....

Time for table food (this time for real!)

We tried giving Grant some real table foods again beginning last weekend, and this time he has picked it up pretty well! About a month ago, I tried giving him a few pieces of banana, and he gagged every time I put one in his mouth (see previous post). But I made our favorite dessert, Eclair Cake (Paula Deen recipe) last weekend, and decided to give him a few bites. He LOVED it and couldn't get enough of it....of course! Who doesn't like Paula Deen desserts?! I started to wonder if that was such a good decision.....it was the only "table food" we gave him for those first couple of days, and I wondered if he would grow such an attachment to the Eclair Cake that he'd think we're crazy for giving him anything any less tasty!

But he's been doing well ever since....he now likes bananas, and has also eaten peaches, peas, kiwi, turkey, Cheerios, and some other things that don't come to mind right now. Of course I am so worried that he's going to choke on everything (he only has two teeth!), so I mash all of his food up with my fingers before putting it into his mouth! I'm sure I'll eventually get better at that....hopefully before he goes to Kindergarten!

Gerber also sells something called "biter biscuits" which look an awful lot like dog biscuits! But Grant likes them a lot.....the first time I gave him one, he grabbed it and held it with two hands while eating from it. I guess that's the idea. They're nice and sweet and I think it makes him feel proud that he's feeding himself! But again, I have to be very careful because all of a sudden I'll notice that he's bitten off a huge chunk into his mouth!

Here's a picture of him enjoying a taste of Eclair Cake (probably the 3rd time he had it!)
Eating a biter biscuit....
"I like bananas, but I'd really like to eat this part of them too!"

Bye Bye, Mustang!

Some happy and sad news to report: Dean sold his Mustang Cobra last Saturday....his "baby" that he bought as a graduation present after college. I know it's going to be hard for him to say goodbye (we still have it in our garage for now), but for the record, I DIDN'T make him do it! It's been hard finding time for him to drive it recently, and especially since Grant has come along. To fit his carseat in the back, you have to move the front seat up so far that it would be impossible for someone to sit there. So that basically means that the three of us would never ride in it together, and that Dean would have to drive it by himself all the time.

Dean considered selling the car a couple of months ago to a good friend of his. But then he drove it a few times and got so many compliments that he thought it might be worth keeping, for a collector's item if nothing else. Well, last week he drove it to work every day while the Passat was in the shop. He came home from work one day and said that he'd decided to sell it.....it's almost 10 years old, and he'd want someone to be able to enjoy it while it still doesn't need a lot of maintenance work. So he called his friend back, and he and his dad are going to buy it.

Dean went around that day and took all kinds of pictures of it. I'm a little sad for him, because I know he loves that car. But he seems to be okay with it, especially because it's a friend buying it. So he knows where to go if he ever wants to visit it! And....as an added bonus, now he's able to get his big screen TV again (which we were going to put off buying after all the money we spent on the Passat). So I guess there's a little bit of silver lining in everything!

Car Issues

I said I'd come back last Sunday and write about all of our problems we'd had that week. Obviously I never got around to it! Things have been so busy with packing and getting house stuff done that I spend almost no time on the computer these days!

Anyway, about 10 days ago, when Tropical Storm Erin came ashore and drenched Houston with rain, a lot of areas were impassable on the roads. Dean works on the east side of town, where most of the afternoon rain fell. So when it was time for him to come home, he looked on the traffic map and saw that the main highway that he usually takes was almost at a standstill for miles. So he thought he'd go a roundabout way to get home. He drove through a couple of high points and the car (our VW Passat) did fine. But then he reached another high point and the car stalled out. He pushed it onto the side of the road (where other cars were sitting as well). Well, it never restarted, so he finally flagged down a tow truck to bring him home.

The tow truck driver told him that he thought the dealership would total the car out. I had never considered that.....how can a car be totaled if there's no water inside, and it was never more than 8 inches high?? But if it WAS totaled, that would have been very bad news for us.....the car is less than 4 years old, and we paid it off last summer. When we paid it off, we took off the comprehensive insurance (thinking at the time, "what's the likelyhood that our car would be stuck in a flood or catch on fire?"). So.....I pictured us towing our (fully paid-off, and only 4-year old) car to the junkyard and not getting a penny for it! AAHH! And on top of that, trying to buy a house at the same time!

Well, it ended up not being nearly so bad. The dealership quoted us around $2500 to fix everything, which sounded wonderful to me (it's all a matter of expectations!). Since this was about the amount that we were planning on spending this fall for a big-screen TV, Dean agreed that it would be best to wait on the TV for another year or so.

So....we got the car back a couple of days ago, and it seems to be working just fine. But a note to anybody reading this who might have a Volkswagen: the air intake (which brings air into the engine) sits VERY low on VWs, meaning that you have to be very careful driving in water (since it makes it much more shallow water for the engine to suck in water and stall out). We wish VW had told us about this when we bought the car! Oh well....

Grant is 9 months old today!

I can't believe Grant is 9 months old! I feel like my little boy is growing up so fast.....I know everyone always says that they grow up before you know it, and I can see how it's true! Our screen saver plays a slideshow of pictures of him since he was born, and it amazes me when I look at these and I realize how much he has changed over the past 3/4 of a year.

Here are some of the things he's been doing over these past couple of weeks:

-Crawling....ALL OVER the place! He's gotten really fast, too....if I take my eyes off of him, sometimes he'll be around the corner and out of the room by the time I look back! He's also gotten really good at pulling himself up on furniture, and just in the past few days, he's even been able to pull himself up to standing at the dishwasher. I'm not really sure how he does it, because there's nothing really to hold onto! He likes to look at his reflection (and put his mouth up to it!) in the glass.

-He now actually pays attention to the pictures in his books. It was quite frustrating trying to read to him for a while, because he'd just try to grab the book and play with it (or stick it in his mouth) instead of looking at it! But this week, he seems to stare at the pictures a lot more, and he'll look at things I point at.

-I think we may have a strong-willed child on our hands! Maybe it's just a stage that he will pass through, but he has shown himself to be fairly headstrong about certain things. He's not afraid to throw fits if things don't go his way....I need to learn how to deal with that, now that he's getting close to the age where we'll need to start disciplining. And it's getting to be a challenge to take him to restaurants with me to meet friends for lunch. When Dean and I go, we can spend time entertaining him, giving him toys to play with, etc. But when I'm meeting someone, he's recently started being a little hard to handle. I think he just gets tired of being in the highchair and would rather be crawling around, and I guess I can't blame him!

-Although he's definitely got a strong personality and lets us know when he does and doesn't like something, he does have a really adorable demeanor. He loves for me and Dean (especially Dean) to play games with him, like quickly saying "boo!" and tickling him when he's watching us. He knows when we're about to do something funny and will even brace himself to get ready! And he loves when we "fly" him around the house, up and down the hallways....he just laughs and laughs, especially when we stick him next to one of the kitties. He gets such a kick out of them and loves to chase them and talk to them!

-He's always been a momma's boy and has always been very wary of strangers (starting at around 3 months), but he's even more attached to me now, probably because he's at the typical age where we should expect some separation anxiety. With all the sleep troubles we've had over the past couple of months (he slept great at night for about 4 months, then started waking up and has been doing so ever since), he always wants to hold onto me when I go into his room to console him. I try to leave him in his crib and not pick him up (I've figured out by now that he's NOT hungry!), and he's okay with that as long as he can hold onto my hand or arm as he's going back to sleep. Usually he holds on with both hands! It's one of the most precious feelings a parent can have. And in the morning when it's time to eat (or anytime that it's time to eat), he cries if I hand him over to Dean.....and he doesn't take his eyes off me the whole time, until I take him back! Daddy is a fun playmate, but sometimes he just wants to be comforted by Mommy.

- He loves showing off for people and looking at other people in stores. When our families have come to visit recently, I think he's tried hard to be extra charming! He'll make so many noises at them and he seems to be more excited than when just the three of us are home on a regular night. And he loves to go shopping....he'll make noises at everyone and he'll usually smile at ladies when they ask questions about him (which surprises me, given his fear of strangers). The other day, we were standing in Macy's trying to return a shirt, and there were SIX women at one point standing there looking at him and talking about how cute he was! Two were helping me behind the counter, and the others were waiting in line. Of course Grant LOVED that....he made his "bbbbb" sound over and over again, which they all thought was hilarious!

- Okay, I'm almost done. He has started to enjoy bathtime even more, and he even crawls towards the bathroom when he hears Dean turn the water on! He'll crawl in there and pull himself up and bounce up and down in excitement (even if he's just been throwing a fit a minute before!). He keeps trying to stand up in his bathtub, because he wants to reach the shampoo and other bottles up on the ledge. We really need to move him out of his infant bathtub and get a slip protector so he can bathe in the big bathtub (without sliding all over the place!). When he gets out of the tub, he loves to be held in front of the mirror.....in fact, he loves being held up to mirrors all the time! He bounces up and down in front of them and gets such a kick out of seeing another baby in front of him!

I know there were some other things but I cannot think of them now. Anybody still reading this is probably tired of reading it all anyway! More tomorrow about our not-so-stellar week we've just had!